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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25981132">slippery customer</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/virginianwolfsnake/pseuds/virginianwolfsnake'>virginianwolfsnake</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, extremely disappointing lunches, you might even say: vastly frustrating dining</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 11:26:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,275</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25981132</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/virginianwolfsnake/pseuds/virginianwolfsnake</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>beatrice wonders if there is any hope of winning georgina back to the cause. it doesn't take her very long to find out the answer.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>slippery customer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>This café has recently been declared the very place to be seen for anyone who considers themselves worth seeing, much to Beatrice’s chagrin. She has always liked the sandwiches here, so now that she has to battle throngs of newcomers to get to the counter she feels hard-done-by, as though this was hers first and someone has slipped her secret to the world just to rob her of the simple pleasure of a nice lunch.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Fortunately, the owner still likes Beatrice best. Perhaps she knows that, within the month, this place will be out of the papers and the fashionable crowd will have a new favourite spot, and she will be here anyway as she was before. She is therefore given a table rather than ushered onto a stool, and has the leisure of people-watching from this position along the back wall. As she casts an eye briefly over the tables, she finds something in the sea of similarly dressed City slickers that gives her pause. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Georgina Orwell has a sense of herself that transcends trends. In all the times Beatrice has met or seen her, she has always been dressed in a crisp and professional way, as if she expects that at any moment she might be called into a City boardroom. She wears block colours, the dark ones that suit her — indigo, forest green, rich raspberry — and with a sleeve never ending above the elbow, so she looks proudly out of place here among the pale patterned shirts and the pastel tea dresses. She is impressively not the kind of woman who will dress according to anyone else’s expectations, or, it seems, even according to the weather. It is the height of summer in the City and the fashionable men are wearing beige linen, but today it is too humid even for that and they are forced to carry their jackets over their arms. Georgina, however, stubbornly wears her stiff-collared green shirt with its long sleeves as though the temperature, like so many other things in life, is beneath her. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Beatrice would like to look at Georgina longer, but her dining companion is the kind of woman who tends to draw her eyes even when she doesn’t want to look. But as she watches Esmé talk animatedly about one thing or another, she cannot hear from this distance, she is suddenly altogether aware of steel grey eyes behind tapered frames watching </span>
  <em>
    <span>her</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Embarrassed to have been caught, and not interested in witnessing the moment Georgina tells her lunch companion about it, Beatrice purses her lips and quickly looks away.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Why they are at lunch together, least of all on an average Wednesday when Georgina is presumably due to be at work in Paltryville and Esmé no doubt has meetings, is an utter mystery. Beatrice doesn’t think that they know each other; she cannot think when they might have met, and it seems the sort of thing Esmé would have gloated about by now, so how and why they have ended up in Beatrice’s favourite lunch spot in the City is an irresistible mystery. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Georgina is somewhat of an enigma, even by the standards of their circle. She is a volunteer, in the very loosest sense of the word, but somewhere in the midst of all the schisms that have befallen their organisation she has lost hold of her own moral position. In the past several years, she has become known as someone who can be relied upon to use her skills exclusively for personal gain — in Beatrice’s estimation, rather a waste of talent. Is the fact that she is here an indication that she might be thinking of changing that position? With her intellect and extensive skill set, she would undoubtedly be an asset, if only she could be handled properly. Many of the volunteers hope that she can be brought back around.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This seems unlikely, partly because Georgina’s open distaste for all of them has always seemed quite indiscriminate. Regardless actor or researcher, cartographer or herpetologist; she seems to find them all as contemptible as each other. Yet here she sits, back in the City for once, with a little curve to her sharp mouth, as though she has begun to find something worthwhile about assistant financial planners of all things. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Beatrice herself would not quite classify Georgina as an enemy. Admittedly, accompanied by Bertrand on her first visit to the mysterious optometrist, they had accidentally entered into a rather lively disagreement about the nature and importance of free will, which had ended with them both being forcefully evicted from her home and declared forever unwelcome in her office, even for routine ophthalmologic care — but, in their line of work, disagreement is often necessary, and she hopes that wasn’t enough to write her off in Georgina’s own mind, especially if she has changed it in regards to her position in their organisation. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Of all the people she might consort with from their organisation on a sojourn to the City, Esmé must be one of the worst possible to choose. She is half-in, half-out at the best of times (Beatrice worries that she leans increasingly toward the latter currently) and seems very unlikely to be able to offer anything in the way of insight into the current state of affairs. If this meeting has been orchestrated on higher orders, perhaps with the aim of swinging Georgina back into a more malleable position, it is very poorly thought through. Esmé knows exclusively what she fancies knowing, and is barely trustworthy herself. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Feeling a little ridiculous, Beatrice catches herself watching from behind her menu. There is a certain little twist of petty outrage inside her, at the idea that this unfriendly hypnotist is happily at lunch with Esmé when she has been so difficult for the rest of them to pin down. Immature as it might be, she marvels bitterly that someone as cerebral as Georgina might find anything to laugh about with someone who lives so relentlessly in the physical. And besides that — hadn’t Esmé told </span>
  <em>
    <span>her</span>
  </em>
  <span> only last week that she was always too busy these days for lunch?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She manages to distract herself with the other diners for a few moments, and then very vaguely with her book, although she finds herself flipping the pages without really being aware of what has happened in the previous one. But she is not too distracted to notice, out of the corner of her eye, the moment where Esmé gathers herself up to leave. Georgina, who seems to still be finishing her drink, shows no intention of following.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Wondering all the while if she will come to regret it, Beatrice picks up her book and her satchel and strides over to take the newly vacant seat. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Baudelaire,” This is surely meant as a greeting, but sounds more like a statement of fact, as though Georgina is acknowledging the interruption but cannot find within herself the level of interest required to be either pleased or irked about it. She doesn’t bother looking up from her glass, which is a little jarring. Beatrice wouldn’t be so conceited as to say so out loud, but she usually doesn’t have trouble capturing other people’s attention. “To what do I owe the… pleasure?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The little pause there is openly calculated and clearly meant to be taken as an insult. Before Beatrice can respond, Georgina speaks again, still without actually raising the line of her gaze. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Not to be rude,” the hypnotist continues, even though everyone who has met her knows that she is no stranger to being rude. “But I think I have had enough lunches with City actresses today. As you know.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A little irritated at the comparison, Beatrice sits up marginally straighter in her chair, as if to make herself look as serious as possible. She is not to be compared to Esmé, who can be so frivolous and silly. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I only wanted to talk,” she says plainly. She learned during her visit with Bertrand that Georgina doesn’t like long-winded speeches or grand metaphors — which does add further intrigue to the matter of her dining companion, with her flowery sentences and overblown theatrics. “It is unusual to see you in the City these days. Especially in an... official capacity.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Behind her glasses, Georgina’s eyes narrow. She finally does look up, while leaning back in her chair to appraise the intruder coolly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Official capacity?” she repeats. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Beatrice is not certain whether she has imagined the slight taunting edge to her tone, and decides to give the older woman the benefit of the doubt about it, so she inclines her head to the exit to indicate Esmé’s recent departure. Georgina is quite difficult to read, so nothing registers in her expression as she takes a moment to calculate her next steps, but when she speaks the amusement in her voice is unconcealed. “Isn’t that rather paranoid, little Beatrice?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Uncharacteristically unbalanced by that strange, patronising comment, Beatrice frowns. “What? I meant that if you are seeking any information,” here she leans closer, so that they can talk more conspiratorially in such a crowded place, noting with some frustration that Georgina does not do the same. “Perhaps you have been looking for it in the wrong place.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I think you will find that I am very rarely wrong.” Georgina informs her smoothly. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There is a chance she has misinterpreted Georgina’s presence here and the company she has decided to keep — an increasingly possible one, at that — but Beatrice also thinks that the hypnotist may be the exact type of person to pretend to misunderstand her deliberately, purely for her own enjoyment. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>One final attempt. “I </span>
  <em>
    <span>mean</span>
  </em>
  <span> —”</span>
</p><p> </p><p><span>“I know exactly what you mean,” Georgina groans, in a manner akin to a child completing dull homework assignments that are far below its capabilities. “You have been as subtle as a brick through a window about it. The reason I am here is quite spectacularly none of your business — </span><em><span>official capacity</span></em><span>,</span> <span>as you put it, or otherwise.”</span></p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Shocked, Beatrice scoffs. She finds herself growing more uncertain by the second that there is any hope of </span>
  <em>
    <span>handling</span>
  </em>
  <span> Georgina. Her knowing, intelligent eyes with their hard steel glint regard her sternly, unblinking, as if to say: </span>
  <em>
    <span>just you try it. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I must say, I didn’t know you were so interested in my whereabouts,” There is absolutely no shortage of glee in Georgina’s rich voice now. “Or who I take to lunch. Imagine; here I was, going about my life, convinced that you and your friends disapproved of me and my methods.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This is a clear challenge, given the debate they had the last time they spoke at any length. Beatrice feels that she has underestimated the strength of Georgina’s convictions the last time they spoke, as well as perhaps the strength of her dislike for the two apprentices who once challenged her approach. She thinks, briefly, of putting this anger back at her in her own terms — if nobody truly has any agency, as she once suggested, then they are not truly responsible for their actions, and so what is the point in holding grudges against them? — but she is given pause purely by the fact that she would rather not spend the rest of her afternoon covered in the red wine Georgina has been sipping. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Well, if those are still your </span>
  <em>
    <span>methods</span>
  </em>
  <span>, then you’re right,” Though Beatrice is angry, and she can hear in her own voice that she sounds as much, her words simply make the hypnotist chuckle. “They are despicable.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What a terribly original view,” Georgina muses sarcastically, swirling what remains of her wine in one hand. “Perhaps I will come back to you one day to engage more with your clever analysis.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Beatrice is certain by now that she has the most she is likely to gain from this encounter; an answer as to Georgina’s status, and not one she or other volunteers have hoped for. What in the world Esmé thinks she is doing spending time with this kind of a person she isn’t sure, but she will make it her business to find out at rehearsal. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Original or not,” she hisses. “At least I can be certain I am right.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Georgina rolls her eyes and wrinkles her nose, as though she has said something unbearably clichéd. “Such lofty morals, but only when they suit you,” this is the moment where she finally decides to lean forward, having left Beatrice hanging for the entirety of their conversation so far. “Do you get tired of explaining yourself to yourself all of the time?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Bristling, Beatrice scowls. “Message received, Georgina,” she snaps. “About as subtle as — did you say a </span>
  <em>
    <span>brick through a window?</span>
  </em>
  <span>” she pauses only to kick back her chair, at which point she discovers that her table has been occupied by other patrons since she left it. Between the coincidence of seeing Esmé here, which was always bound to distract her, this conversation, and the fashionable crowd making this place unbearable, it appears this lunch was doomed from the start. Still, it is too late to back down now. She won’t stay only to be insulted. “I will leave you to finish your lunch.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No need,” Georgina says, and tips back her head to finish her drink in one swift gulp. Afterwards, she stands also, fetching her bag and looping it over her arm to rest at her elbow. “Enjoy your lunch, Baudelaire. I imagine we will see each other again at some time.”</span>
</p><p><br/>
<span>As she weaves past, a look of smug satisfaction on her angled face, she pauses only to mutter; “Though I </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span> hope it will be a while.”</span>
</p>
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